<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>No I got nothing to say by CravingCraze</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24295651">No I got nothing to say</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CravingCraze/pseuds/CravingCraze'>CravingCraze</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek &amp; Paul/Levenson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>ASL, Alana and Connor are besties fight me, Galaxy Gals, M/M, Mute alana, Tutoring, pinning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:40:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,281</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24295651</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CravingCraze/pseuds/CravingCraze</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Alana wasn’t big on words. Ever since the second grade, no one ever paid attention to her, so why waste time trying to get anyone’s attention who clearly didn’t want it? </p><p>What was the point of talking if no one was there to hear her?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alana Beck &amp; Connor Murphy, Alana Beck/Zoe Murphy, Evan Hansen/Connor Murphy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>No I got nothing to say</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>It’s been a hot minute since I’ve wrote these girls! But I’m so glad I did, cause I missed them!</p><p>This contains mute! Alana, or selectively mute, as it’s open to interpretation. The concept really intrigued me, and I hope you all will like it!</p><p>I hope you enjoy! Come talk to me @cravingcraze on tumblr and check for updates on @officialcravingcraze</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Alana wasn’t big on words. Ever since the second grade, no one ever paid attention to her, so why waste time trying to get anyone’s attention who clearly didn’t want it? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>What was the point of talking if no one was there to hear her?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Back when she was in kindergarten, she was arguably one of the most talkative in her class. That didn't guarantee that anyone was actually listening, though. Classmates didn't look at her while she spoke, sometimes just straight up just talking to other students, or they'd just walk away. Alana tried not to let this hurt her, despite the fact that she'd had yet to make a single friend in class. At least her teacher was nice to talk to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it still hurt, she wouldn’t lie about that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Other children made friends with </span>
  <em>
    <span>ease</span>
  </em>
  <span>, talking away as they filled outside the lines of the coloring sheets the teacher handed out, played tetherball, participated in a game of tag, or even role played, while Alana contently swung on the swing sets by herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She does remember that a little while before the ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>printer incident’ </span>
  </em>
  <span>occurred, Connor Murphy asked if he could hang out with her at recess. Although their time together was short, she’ll never forget spinning around and around on the merry-go-round with him, racing across the monkey bars, or even just hung out by the swings. Before he distanced himself after throwing the printer, those were probably the best days of her life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her parents, Zach and Antonio, liked to tease her about her </span>
  <em>
    <span>“boy friend”</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but Alana insisted she didn’t like Connor that way. She said it would be </span>
  <em>
    <span>weird</span>
  </em>
  <span> if they got together, and that she just liked girls, not boys. They surprisingly didn’t say she was “too young to know who she liked”, but just told her that was fine, as long as she stuck to the right crowd.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But after Connor stopped hanging out, she decided she was done talking all together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her teacher had to call up her dads to talk to them about this, as it was becoming an issue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She’s refusing to talk or participate in class, and she’s only communicating through loose-leafed paper!” The teacher fretted, watching Alana fiddle her thumbs, staying resiliently quiet as the notebook mentioned from before laid on her lap.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well you can't force her to talk,” the dark skinned man said, running his hand through his mullet length hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zach gazed at her with concern. “If anyone knows, it’s us. Just last night she was asking us to teach her American Sign Language.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where could she have learned about </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” This didn’t decrease the teacher’s concerns.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zach rubbed his hand over the rose tattoo on his left forearm. “She has free rein of the computer because her grades are so high. I… thought it was only fair.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The teacher let out a groan, “What am I supposed to </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span>? I don’t know ASL!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Just keep doing what you’ve been doing,” Antonio shrugged. “None of us here can force her to talk and we know it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And so, this started a pattern. Alana’s dads would inform her teachers that she was selectively mute, and that she could handle herself in the classroom, but it was necessary to check in on her, as she was still just a child.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But in high school, the teachers didn’t really care about that. With this information, they just made Alana do presentations on her own, and create transcripts for the speech part of the assignment. While she appreciated the peace and quiet, it was quite lonely, and she yearned for someone to talk to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So she wasn’t really expecting Zoe Murphy to approach her, asking for tutoring lessons in Geometry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At first, Alana was worried that her muteness would inconvenience Zoe, and her learning experience, but the latter seemed to know and suggested she just texted it to her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Having someone put in </span>
  <em>
    <span>that much </span>
  </em>
  <span>effort was just… crazy to Alana, and very surreal. No one </span>
  <em>
    <span>ever </span>
  </em>
  <span>tried so hard for her, aside from her dads, but they didn’t count because they were just being good parents. Teachers flew through the motions, students ignored Alana when she was paired in groups for review, and was just… invisible. See through. Like a ghost, a former version of herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Zoe was different. She put in the effort for Alana, which was quite flattering, considering she didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>have to </span>
  </em>
  <span>do any of that. Whenever they weren’t going over Geometry, Zoe would ask to learn a little bit of ASL, and it turned out, she was trying to learn on her own too. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually, the study sessions moved to their houses, and the sessions morphed into sleepovers, with the two messing around and doing normal teenage stuff, from braiding each other’s hair, to Zoe reading her magazines to Alana. They were mainly at Alana’s, because Zoe wasn’t too keen on staying at her own for longer than necessary. Alana was aware that her home environment wasn’t the best, but it was improving, so she was trying to coax Zoe into sticking around a bit longer whenever they made a pit stop. The pleading looks Zoe would give hurt her heart, but Alana knew that she couldn’t always be there, and needed Zoe to feel a small sense of security at her house. Still, Alana always held her a bit tighter and closer when they reunited.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Despite all of this, Alana still noticed the looks some students gave Zoe when they saw them walking down the hallway together, or just sitting together at lunch. Zoe either was very good at hiding her disdain for these students, very oblivious to them, or she knew but she didn’t do anything about it, and just hated Alana in silence. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That last one seemed less probable, but lesser odds still had a way of coming out on top. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ironically though, she ran into Connor again, while she was waiting for Zoe to grab snacks. He was looking for something she’d stolen, which Alana assumed was a normal sibling thing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You probably don’t know what I’m even saying,” she signed with a playful roll of her eyes, watching him grab a cardboard box filled with a variety of nail polish.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But to her surprise, Connor replied, “Oh, don’t I?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alana was baffled. She didn’t think he knew ASL, because </span>
  <em>
    <span>Zoe</span>
  </em>
  <span> definitely didn’t, so why should he? “You know ASL?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he signed at her, smiling, as the box was set aside. “Mainly because I felt bad I didn’t know it when we were lab partners, and learning felt like making it up to you, in a way. Not to mention me and e-v use it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She tilted her head at him. “I didn’t know e-v-a-n was selectively mute.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He isn’t. Sometimes he just can’t say things the way he wants to, or he just can’t force himself to talk to people,” Connor shrugged his shoulders. “And sometimes I use it too, mainly just to keep my thoughts in check, cause I say stupid shit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alana let out a small giggle at that. “You are very bold,” she smiled. “You do what you want. It’s admirable.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It gets me in trouble, more often than not,” Connor rolled his eyes. “Do you want your nails done? I was gonna do e-v-‘s, something about his hands too shaky to do it himself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alana took a moment to weigh her options. On one end, she couldn’t sign well with one hand, but on the other, she </span>
  <em>
    <span>never </span>
  </em>
  <span>did her nails, mainly afraid to attract attention to herself. Sure, she was big on talking about her volunteering achievements, showing presentations, or even grades if she was feeling a bit confident, but those were just base level about her. No personal information, just showing the world what she could do. But if she did her nails, people would start asking about </span>
  <em>
    <span>her</span>
  </em>
  <span>, like for example, her favorite color, which she didn’t want, she just wanted her actions to speak for her, not the fact that she was easily distracted and “talkative”, as some called her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, what harm could a little nail polish do? And sue her for feeling a bit </span>
  <em>
    <span>bold</span>
  </em>
  <span>. So, she nodded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was why Zoe found her with Connor and Evan on her bedroom floor, happily chatting away as Connor painted her nails a bright yellow . Yellow just made her happy. It was a pretty and bright color that always helped pull Alana out of bad days, whether it being wrapped in her light yellow blanket or putting some hair clippings in her hair. Not to mention it reminded her of the sun, which she associated with exposure, like coming to terms that she was a lesbian, passed a relatively tough test, or even just letting people into her life and allowing them to grow close.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The small group of friends (were they friends? They were working up to that, Alana thought) happily chatted away about everything and nothing as Zoe sat in front of Alana, who was trying to braid it from a tutorial she’d found on Google, when a message was sent through. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Connor (bestie🌻): you should take zoe out to the old apple orchard 0: i can tell you really like her, and she rlly likes galaxy shit. There’s an opening there where you can see the stars and stuff</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Alana looked over at Connor, who was holding Evan’s hands, presumably to keep his nails from smearing. She grabbed her phone with a smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Alana: Not yet. Don’t know a lot about space. Plus I need an address and gotta find where this opening is.</b>
</p><p>
  <span>She watched as Connor glanced down at his phone and nodded, signifying he’d tell her later. He turned his gaze back to a very flustered Evan, not daring to meet Connor’s eyes, in that moment at least.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alana later left with bright yellow painted nails, and a messy ponytail, feeling both a pang of worry and determination residing in her chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>~*~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A week had passed after Alana learnt about the orchard. It was sort of a blur, as she stuck to a strict schedule of school, hang out with Zoe for an hour or two, eat dinner, finish homework, and research constellations and whatever else resigned in the Galaxy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Unfortunately for her, Connor left out one </span>
  <em>
    <span>small </span>
  </em>
  <span>detail. The orchard was shut down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alana cursed internally, turning to Zoe. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, stuck inside her Subaru Outback, sitting just beyond the meadow she was supposed to find. It was already dark and she had everything planned out, a blanket to lay on, sandwiches to share, it would’ve been </span>
  <em>
    <span>perfect</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh! I remember this place!” Zoe pulled her from her thoughts. “It’s Autumn Smiles Apple Orchard! Me and my family used to come here all the time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She didn’t have to ask why they stopped. She knew, so she just nodded. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We should go in,” she turned to Alana with a mischievous grin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alana frowned, “But it’s closed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re seventeen, Lana! This won’t leave a dent on your permanent record, and it’s your last chance to rebel!” Zoe insisted, taking her hand. “Let’s live on the </span>
  <em>
    <span>edge </span>
  </em>
  <span>while we still can!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Part of Alana refused to break into an abandoned orchard, in fear of the police finding them and getting arrested, but on the other, this was for </span>
  <em>
    <span>Zoe</span>
  </em>
  <span>, who loved stars and swirls up in the sky and just rode whatever crazy train her mind was on. So, she nodded again, stepping outside the red car.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The gate would’ve been easier to pass without hauling a picnic basket and blanket over the fence, in the dark, but it was manageable, and soon after, they ventured through the wooded area, as they were guided by a light on Zoe’s phone. Their hands never left one another’s as they were coated in a blanket of darkness and scattered wonders. They didn’t talk, just basked in one another’s presence. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When they got outside the meadow, they decided to settle on top of a hill, where the blanket was laid out,and sandwiches and drinks were distributed. This was it, Alana was going to impress Zoe with her vast knowledge of constellations and parts of such. But before she could, Zoe spoke up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks for bringing me here, Lana,” she could feel their hands interning gently, and she scooted closer. “I mean, you literally </span>
  <em>
    <span>broke into an orchard </span>
  </em>
  <span>for me!” She laughed, but it wasn’t mean. Zoe wasn’t mean. “It’s just… crazy. All the stuff you do for me…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alana could only use one hand, but that was fine. “I would do anything for you,” she signed slowly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zoe’s hand was on her cheek. She tried to stop her heart from beating out of her chest, but she was just too damn nervous as Zoe inched closer to her, so she decided for once in her life to not think and just act. Alana pressed her lips against Zoe’s, and she could feel the world explode around them in flurries and light swirls that danced in her chest, cheeks absolutely flushed against Zoe’s. She tasted like the honey on her sandwich and tinge of peanut butter as well. Zoe was </span>
  <em>
    <span>absolutely </span>
  </em>
  <span>intoxicating, drawing her in the longer they stayed connected, firmly pressed together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually, despite it being more like a few minutes, they pulled away, but sat closer nevertheless, arms wond one another.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Lana, are we…?” Zoe trailed off, tightening her hold on Alana, who nodded into her shoulder with a small smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Despite it all, without the use of words, she was sure she heard her loud and clear.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>